This chapter covers the following roles in grant-aided schools:

• principals and vice-principals (roles collectively known as the ‘leadership group’)
• school inspectors employed by the Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI)
• special educational needs coordinators, who have particular responsibility for overseeing special educational needs (SEN) provision within a school
• careers guidance staff
• staff who provide learning support to students
• staff who provide administrative and technical support to the school.

This chapter also briefly covers management staff in higher education and further education respectively.

Main national policies 

The Department of Education (DE) is responsible for 0-4 provision, primary, post-primary and special education and the youth service. Its annual Business Plan for 2020/21 sets out the DE’s corporate goals, one of which is developing the education workforce. This goal recognises the particular professional roles of early years providers, teachers and school leaders in delivering an effective, age appropriate curriculum and raising standards, and also the important role of other education professionals and those who support them. (The corporate goals support Outcome 12 of the Outcomes Delivery Plan (‘We give our children and young people the best start in life’), which in turn is derived from the draft Programme for Government 2016-21, developed in conjunction with the political parties of the previous Executive.)

Responsibility for higher education and further education lies with the Department for the Economy (DfE). The DfE’s annual Business Plan for 2019/20 includes a strategic objective to enhance education, skills and employability, supported by actions including delivering on the Careers Strategy Preparing for Success 2015-2020. This includes commitments that, as part of a quality assurance framework for careers education, all careers practitioners throughout the system will be professionally qualified and obliged to maintain their professional competence through continuing professional development and adherence to professional standards.

In relation to management and other education staff, the main priorities are contained in the policy documents summarised briefly below.

Every School a Good School, the (2009) policy document for school improvement, emphasised the importance of the role of school leaders in raising educational standards. It defined effective leadership as having a clear vision and high expectations for pupils, along with the skills to translate that vision and those expectations into reality. Its approach includes the following key elements:

• providing aspiring and existing principals with the right set of skills to be effective leaders; and making becoming a principal an attractive career choice
• encouraging the right teachers to become school principals
• ensuring that school governors are clear about their role and responsibilities and are prepared for their role.

The policy also made a commitment to conduct a formal review of leadership programmes. This led to the discontinuation of the Professional Qualification for Headship, PQH(NI), in 2018.

Learning Leaders, a strategy for teacher professional learning (2016), reflected the themes set out in Every School a Good School. Its strategic objectives included the strengthening of leadership capacity in schools and the promotion of collaborative working and sharing of best practice through professional learning communities and networks.

A new framework for special educational needs (SEN) is being introduced, which will impact on the role of special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs) in schools. Under the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (Northern Ireland) 2016, a duty will be placed on the board of governors of each school to ensure a learning support coordinator is appointed within the school to coordinate provision for children with SEN. Implementation of the new SEN Framework was anticipated to be put in place during 2020, but has been delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Updates will be posted to the Department of Education website.

In higher education, Advance HE has the remit of advancing professional practice across the UK. This includes teaching, research and leadership practice. A suite of programmes targets those who are new to HE leadership, those with some leadership experience and seeking to improve their practice, and senior and strategic leaders. (Advance HE was formed in March 2018 from a merger of three sector bodies (the Equality Challenge Unit - ECU, the Higher Education Academy - HEA, and the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education - LFHE) . This was in response to the recommendations of a review of HE sector agencies by the higher education sector representative bodies, Universities UK and GuildHE.)

In further education, continuing to develop strong leadership and management is a focus of Further Education Means Success, the 2016 Northern Ireland strategy for further education. The strategy also identifies a key role for college leaders in ensuring that colleges work together to achieve one of the strategy’s policy commitments – that of ensuring effectiveness by sharing best practice through college-to-college collaboration.

Article last reviewed April 2021.